So my expieriences from LFR as Disc

Tried all of last week to join any PuG I saw pop up in trade and got turned down from every single one because I was Disc. After doing the first 3 fights in LFR so far I can see why. Last on the meters compared to the paladins and druids and first to go OOM. Is that really what I have to look forward to every week? No one wanting me in real raids and getting beat by every other healer in LFR?

Maybe you're not invited because people just know you're not... erm, great? Spirit Shell is an amazing tool when used properly.

Being just barely geared for raids (as most everyone is right now) running out of mana is not really that big an issue. Also, you should be more worried about whether the raid survives than how many HPS you average. HPS is a crap way to judge performance.

Originally Posted by melodramocracy

Gold and the 'need' for it in-game is easily one of the most overblown mindsets in this community.

Being just barely geared for raids (as most everyone is right now) running out of mana is not really that big an issue. Also, you should be more worried about whether the raid survives than how many HPS you average. HPS is a crap way to judge performance.

Yea but how am I supposed to perform in normal modes and eventually hard modes If Im struggling to keep mana in LFR? Keeping Mindbender on cooldown still isnt enough. If this was a 10 man we would be screwed.

Being turned down solely because you are disc isn't very sensible. Maybe these specific groups had a disc already or maybe have played with you before and didn't enjoy the experience (just trying to be realistic here)... Discs are fantastic for certain fights.

You seem to not have much confidence in your healing, have you looked up guides for mop disc healing? Knowing your class is half the battle.

I'm nowhere near the top of the top, but I've been leveling a panda priest from 1-80 as Disc with no mana problems whatsoever, but as soon as I hit 80, I oom in regular dungeon runs. I guess it's the new system taking effect, but I agree that Disc feels really behind on ways of getting back mana or at the very least not OOMing. Mindbender is pretty much the only way to keep my mana up, and its not really enough.

Yea but how am I supposed to perform in normal modes and eventually hard modes If Im struggling to keep mana in LFR? Keeping Mindbender on cooldown still isnt enough. If this was a 10 man we would be screwed.

Gear up more and learn to control your mana more I guess. Getting faster and learning the fights (pre-bubbles/SS for example) means more effective healing, less over healing and less wasted mana.

There were multiple threads about priest healing and mana issues from many months ago. When priests started posting that they had to spam Solace in raid testing due to mana issues, GC replied by significantly nerfing the mana return on solace, not addressing the problem at all. I lost a lot of respect for him when he did that. I wish the beta forums were still up so I could link the thread that he had replied in.

I played disc in wolk/cata and went back to my druid this xpac, you have my sympathies. Disc was nerfed hard, although ss is very good if used correctly (you MUST take the time to learn damage patterns in raids so if you want to maximize your ss usage...also true for the disc playstyle pre-ss as well).

I am fairly confident about playing my priest. I have tried every combination of healing and nothing seems to work. I mixed in some atonement when there wasnt much raid damage and I tried using spirit shell when I knew there would be. The problem is I still blow through my mana and if I try and conserve it I just get blown away by the other healers. There are even some Heroic 5 man bosses I struggle on. Our AoE healing just sucks, well make that non existent because spamming PoH is just going to OOM you even faster and the amount it heals for is laughable.

I have a feeling that Disc sucks because of PvP QQ....Blizzard stop balancing around PvP in a PvE game...Thanks

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I took PW: Solace. I can bubblespam and not oom, and I get to keep my shadowfiend. I've tried using from darkness comes light, it's quite good in 5mans and pvp, procs lots. tried mindbender, but contrary to popular burblings over at the thinktank, I find being able to just spam the shit out of anything and refuel the mana up with a quick flurry of Solace's to be perfect for my uses.
Also. make sure you are looking at heals and absorbs, not just hps

Last edited by Bigbamboozal; 2012-10-10 at 12:23 PM.

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Proof that the mmochamp community can be a bitter and lonely place. What a shame.

I took PW: Solace. I can bubblespam and not oom, and I get to keep my shadowfiend. I've tried using from darkness comes light, it's quite good in 5mans and pvp, procs lots. tried mindbender, but contrary to popular burblings over at the thinktank, I find being able to just spam the shit out of anything and refuel the mana up with a quick flurry of Solace's to be perfect for my uses.
Also. make sure you are looking at heals and absorbs, not just hps

I call BS that you can bubblespam and not goo oom. Bubble consumes a ton of mana. And the return from Rapture isn't enough to make it mana-efficient. And it has an ICD. Also, Solace won't do any good for healing intensive fights, because it will require you to not heal to regain mana. PW:Solace might be good for fights where you have downtime with no one taking damage, like Feng's phases where you can negate damage with Barrier. And most meters nowadays merge absorbs and account for them into the HPS count.

Now, to the OP. Priests in general are in a bad situation, for healing. While I can say that I don't have many problems with Holy, Disc is in a really tough situation now. Whoever says Spirit Shell is good enough, you need to spend LOTS of mana to make it worth casting.

I've played Disc as main for quite a while. I think people are slightly exaggerating our poor state. We CAN still pull good hps and decent numbers, but our mana regen is complete shit.
The issue I have with Disc atm is that we don't have a healing CD since we lost Divine Hymn. I love Barrier but that requires two things 1) People stacked up. 2) Casting it before the damage. The second point being easier to use as you get used to the fight, however in the learning attempts where a throughput CD will be most useful it feels kind of meh.
Spirit shell is a great tool and I think has a high skill cap.

A few things to consider, Rapture scales with 150% spirit. So it is entirely possible that our mana regen could get exponentially better with gear. In cata Holy was stronger at first aswell because of the mana efficiency of lightwell etc.
I doubt the hotfix will fix disc atm, but we will either scale really well or get a fix soon.
As for heroic dungeons, I have about an average of 463 gear with a total of roughly 7k spirit and I have no mana issues at all. I spend most of my time spamming smite and I'm still fine. Though for raids I will be going Holy unless there is a need for Barrier.

TL;DR Disc is in a bad state atm but not as bad as people make it out to be. A buff to mana regen could be all we need.